Where Am I? What Happened?

I've Not Visited Rochdale For Ages
After all, Royton has most of what I need (beer and bread) whilst it is but a little further on to Oldham, which has the rest of what I need (books).
     Today, in order to squeeze value out of my weekly bus pass, I decided to go into Rochdale and trawl the charity shops for books, as there are half a dozen up the length of Yorkshire Street*.
     This is the town centre as I remembered it:

The "Black Box", the car park and underneath it, the bus station

     The Black Box is the old building the Council offices were in, adjacent to the car park, and the base of the car park is the old bus station, a gloomy edifice indeed.
     Then this happened:

Hay Pesto!  No bus station.  And the Black Box looks rather nervous ...

     All unbeknownst to Conrad.  There's even trams back in Rochdale!  When did all this happen?  

The Black Box brought low

     And now there's a fancy new bus station, facing a set of curvy council offices:

Bus station on the right

     It's either a very long time since Conrad was in Rochdale, or these things went up with blinding speed.
     Conrad - not as in touch as he fondly imagined.

The Haul
It was worth the journey for me:

     I like that hopeful sticker on the British Heart Foundation copies - "Read me, then bring me back again".  Are you kidding?  You are addressing Conrad - excuse me, CONRAD - ah, let a picture paint several hundred thousand words:

     Look at these.  Do you really think you're getting anything back?

Xibalba
Currently reading about the Mayan civilisation and how it managed water, in Stephen Mithen's very readable "Thirst".  Remember that this civilisation did not have pack animals or the wheel when they build acropoli as at Tikal or Edzna.

Tikal

Edna

     Anyway, Conrad with his mind akin to a rubbish skip two miles to a side, was struck by the Mayan name "Xibulba", as it had a curious echo of having been seen recently.  Googling didn't solve the problem and it wasn't until a couple of minutes ago, looking at named photographs, that I stumbled across the answer:

     Meet "Sebulba", from an obscure franchise in science fiction called "Star Trek Wars" or something like that.
     Okay, it's not exact, but someone's been reading about the Mayans ...

And this came up when I Googled "Tikal"**

Hmmm.  Conrad The Hypocrite
I did post in a sneering manner yesterday that only faux-bloggers seeking to pad out their posts include a multiplicity of pictures with little to no text.
     O Dearie me!  Reviewing the above, I've done exactly that.  I do apologise and shall now witter on at length in text, just to re-establish a bit of blogging karma.
     One idea noted in my Premier Foods notebook is a couple of lines: "What do you do with a weapon when it's no longer needed?  What if your weapon is a human being?"
     Interesting premise, non?  I did work out a brief concept to frame it, science fiction of course, set mannnny years ahead.
    So.  Humanity, burgeoning across interstellar space and settling on any habitable world, encounters The Enemy - a bit of a cipher at this point.  Intelligent Lego?  Landmobile weasel-sharks?  Killer potatoes?***Anyway, The Enemy aren't interested in co-existence, diplomacy, negotiation, peace-love-and-understanding.  No.  They intend to wipe out humanity and they proceed to do so with great gusto, for seventeen years, until Earth finally comes up with it's last-ditch effort - genetically-engineered superhumans.  No idea yet quite how super they are, but there are 23,000 of 'em.  It just seemed like a nice large number.  They take the fight to The Enemy and exterminate them - no PC nonsense about getting on with your interstellar neighbour in the 25th century!
     You can see where this is going, can't you?  The war is over, The Enemy are gone, there are 23,000 superhumans knocking around with no useful purpose.  If they were tanks or jets or artillery pieces you could just junk them, but you can't do that to human beings.  Or can you?

Evil Lego it is, then^.

Proof!  Proof, I Tell You!
Conrad is always asserting that the office temperature is set at just below sub-tropical and that people like Manisha, wrapped up in a cardy and scarf and with a hot water bottle, are clearly ill.  Well, take a look at this bottle:

Nice ice

     This photo was taken at two in the afternoon and the ice is still mostly unmelted.  Now, in the office there would be very little ice left by this time of day, which proves my point that the office is unbearably hot^^.


* I am trusting Wonder Wifey about this name as to me it's just "That uphill road with all the shops".
** I keep telling you, everything is connected to everything else!
*** I once wrote a story about killer potatoes. A serious story.
^  I am just as surprised as you are that there really is such a thing.
^^ There is no alternative.  The Mansion is not cold.